AN ANALYSIS ON WOMEN LANGUAGE IN LEGALLY BLONDE FILM: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY

ABSTRACT

The aims of this research are describing the characteristics of women’s
language and finding out the construction of gender identities in the terms of
hedging and boosting devices in Legally Blonde film.
This research uses sociolinguistic approach. And the object of this
research is all the utterances uttered by female characters in Legally Blonde film.

The source of the data is taken from the script of Legally Blonde film. For
collecting the data the writer uses Teknik Simak Bebas Libat Cakap (Non
Participative Technique) and also uses noting technique. After finding all the data
needed, the researcher classifies them into two classifications based on Lakoff’s
theory. The first classification is hedging devices and the second one is boosting
devices. After having classified the data, the writer tries to find the gender
construction identities in the terms of hedging devices and boosting devices.

The findings of this research show that there are characteristics of
women’s language in the terms of hedging and boosting devices. The final
findings show that in the terms of hedging devices; it is found that lexical hedge
or filler and question intonation represent the most appearance of hedging devices.
This means the female characters’ utterances show uncertainty. They are
uncertain about what they are saying and explicitly signal of lack of confidence.
Meanwhile, in the terms of boosting devices, it is found that intensifiers represent
the highest frequency. They utter intensifiers in order to boost the force and to
strengthen the meaning of other words in their utterances. Then, the gender
construction identities found in this film is that women construct their gender
identities as polite, uncertain, powerless, lack of confident, unconvinced people
and need to be paid attention. Those all are caused by their subordinate social
group. Therefore they use language which reinforces their relatively inferior
position and that they conclude in their own subordination by how they
communicate to the others. And from the context of Legally Blonde film, the
writer also finds that women care with their performance. It is done by going to
salon, going shopping, using perfumery, gossiping, using certain color, such as:
pink, magenta color, etc, and they are more sensitive than men.